configure fails with expat

when running ./configure it fails on this: configure: error: not found. Please reinstall the expat distribution I am configuring as follows: ./configure --with-sybase=/usr/local/freetds/ --with-apache=../apache_1.3.26 --with-mysql --with-expat-dir=/usr/lib also if I specify the path of mysql as /usr/bin configure complains it can't find the headers I am running Mandrake 8.2 1ghz PIII 384 ram I appreciate any help as I am new to compiling and have been at this quite some time with little progress.